Innumerable mornings or evenings I find myself driving along the rural backroads of the Lakeland region. My only hope during this search is that something will intrigue me enough to slow down, descend the ambiguous ditch only to immediately ascend again and look towards an undiscovered subject. This oversimplified explanation of my yearning to uncover hidden beauty in my home county could be an insight into my idealism. Regardless, I’m perpetually hopeful that the light and conditions will come together perfectly to highlight the optimal subject in the location I happen to be driving towards. The reality is a majority of the time I go out to shoot I come back with either nothing or something underwhelming such as the first image below. There is this romanticism with photography, especially when it comes to making mages in your own backyard. I look at the legendary Ansel Adams and he made it seem so effortless. I realize he considered a good year to be getting twelve ‘keepers’ but the quality he produced is still magical. I suppose he was somewhat aided by the grandeur of Yosemite and one could say that the Lakeland region is a far cry from such an iconic location.

People often drive through or visit this area without thinking about its history or what makes this region unique from many others. To a certain extent, I’m still learning much of that myself and the cliche could be said that it all comes down to the people. However, there is something about this landscape that I am perplexed by. No other place have I travelled and had more difficulty to make photographs that I think are interesting, complicated, or beautifully simple. My home is where I have the greatest difficulty. It could be due to familiarity, yet I don't want to take the easy excuses, which leads me to just having to embrace that if I want to document the landscape of this region it’s going to take a lot of work, patience, and vision for the kind of legacy that can be established.

With all this said, if you’re interested in learning from me, I now offer solo lessons where we do an hour of lessons, and then another hour of actual shooting during golden hour. You can have never turned on your camera and by the end of it, people walk away much more knowledgeable and excited for figuring out how to see from a photographers perspective. I’d love for you to join me in this unrelenting pursuit of uncovering the unique geography in the Lakeland.